Revised bridge fix plan unveiled

Proposal lowers tolls, borrowing

By John Howell
Posted 2/3/16

Even before repairing bridges, Gov. Gina Raimondo tended political fences.

Joined by House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, the governor last Thursday rolled out …

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Revised bridge fix plan unveiled

Proposal lowers tolls, borrowing

Posted

Even before repairing bridges, Gov. Gina Raimondo tended political fences.

Joined by House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, the governor last Thursday rolled out a revised truck-toll plan that answers many concerns raised by legislators and special interest groups.

The legislation reduces the level of bonding initially projected, limits the one-day toll for one-way across the state to $20 and closes the door on the fear that truck tolls could be expanded to cars at some point when the state is looking to boost revenues.

Whether those revisions are enough to give the bill an easy pass through the General Assembly remains to be seen.

A coalition of citizens groups, Stop Tolls Rhode Island, opposed the revised bill and in a release issued Sunday claimed “gantries would be erected around the state to collect tolls from all large trucks, with no tax credits or rebates for local trucking companies, thereby expanding the vehicles subject to tolling.”

The coalition noted changes in the financing would reduce the cost of borrowing, but that “the interest still represents an eye-popping $204 million that will be removed from Rhode Island’s economy rather than spent on bridge repair.”

RhodeWorks is as much a jobs program as it is a program to repair state bridges. According to Department of Transportation projections, the RhodeWorks legislation, designed to have 90 percent of the state’s bridges sufficient by 2025, would create 6,000 jobs over 10 years.

That employment would start as soon as the legislation is approved, DOT Director Peter Alviti said at Thursday’s State House press conference. Some of the initial work would go into design and consulting, although, he added, some projects are ready to go out to bid.

The program is designed around an initial five-year surge to address bridges that if left unattended could ultimately cost three and four times more to replace, explained DOT spokesman Charles St. Martin.

St. Martin, who has been with the department for almost 10 years, said DOT has an ongoing program of bridge repairs, but “we haven’t been able to catch up. There are just so much funds and so many bridges. This would gain ground and allow us to sustain the upkeep.”

In all, the DOT is targeting 150 bridges, Alviti said. Another 500 bridges would come under the category of ongoing maintenance.

Speaking of RhodeWorks, a more than 600-page program that can be viewed on the DOT website, Alviti pointed out it also addresses roads, drainage and other related highway projects. He said the program would give the state a “world-class” highway system in 10 years.

Since Raimondo launched the program and plan to help underwrite costs with truck tolls last year, it has produced more skeptics than advocates, although there is agreement that the state’s highway infrastructure is in deplorable condition. The plan gained Senate approval last June but stalled when it reached the House. There had been talk of the General Assembly reconvening in the fall, but that didn’t happen.

Within the last three weeks, in a show of force, truckers protested the bill, driving around the State House intermittently sounding their horns. A poll commissioned by Hassenfeld Institute for Public Leadership at Bryant University found a majority opposed to truck tolls and favoring a reduction in state spending as a means of funding repairs.

“We can’t afford the politics and the procrastination anymore,” Raimondo said, facing television camera lights and a phalanx of reporters in the House lounge Thursday. She said the new legislation represents a “stronger proposal than what it was.”

Enabling the new plan is a projected increase in funding that will come to the state under the federal highway act, and the ability to borrow in anticipation of that funding at lower rates than conventional bonding. According to the release provided by the governor’s office, bonding would be reduced from $600 million to $300 million. This would reduce bonding interest costs by 65 percent, from $578 million to $204 million.

Mattiello and Paiva Weed applauded Raimondo for retooling the initial legislation and heeding concerns over the cost of the package and the possibility that tolls could be extended to cars.

“This is good for the economy and moves our state in the right direction,” Mattiello said. “We are not going to be last,” he said in reference to the often-stated claim that the state ranks 50th for deficient bridges in the country.

Extending the tolls to cars would require voter approval.

“Despite the scare tactics of opponents of this proposal who only want to hold our economy back, the toll plan only includes large commercial trucks. There are now safeguards in the legislation to assure our citizens that tolls will never be extended to cars without voter approval,” Mattiello said in a statement.

According to RhodeWorks, about 76 percent of the state’s bridges are “sufficient,” meaning 24 percent are deficient. If maintenance and repairs continue at the current level, it is projected 35 percent of the bridges would be deficient in five years. With the surge, that drops to about 20 percent in five years and to 10 percent by 2025.

Of the plan, Paiva Weed said, “When we share a common vision we share a common goal.”

The new plan reduces the number of gantries from 17 to 14 and lowers the cap on the toll to cross the state from $30 to $20. There would be no stopping at the gantries, which would be equipped with radar and visual recognition systems, Alviti said.

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